Friday, February 13, 2009

To: Paraskavedekatriaphobiacs RE: A Gift of Peace!

Today is Friday the 13th. And we’ve got another one next month, the first time we’ve been hit back to back since 1998. And the 2009 calendar is darkened by yet another one in November.

Worried? Blue?

Don’t go there, PeaceTags Peeps, we have advice from Donald Dossey, an expert on stress, superstitions and phobias.

“If people are fearful of Friday the 13th, I tell them to chill out, don’t worry about it, it’s going to go away,” Dossey says. “It’s only a problem if their fears get in the way of their jobs or love.”

Dossey, founder of the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, N.C., estimates roughly 20 million Americans fall into that second category. They are so spooked by the date on the calendar they can’t go to work. Some don’t even get out of bed, leaving hundreds of millions of dollars in business not done.

The fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskavedekatriaphobia. One theory states that it is a modern amalgamation of two older superstitions: that thirteen is an unlucky number and that Friday is an unlucky day.

Here are two suggestions from the expert, Dossey.

He advises those who walk around with visions of disasters on Friday the 13th to shrink those mental pictures from bigger-than-life to thumbnail size. People don’t necessarily get rid of the frightening images, he says, but they can make the images bearable.

Dossey’s second strategy has to do with what he calls keying in positive feelings. (A practice we PeaceTags Peeps heartily recommend!!!!!)